Various Artists-Mindrocker, Vol. 1 (1981)

 

Artist: Various Artists (The Brogues, Chosen Few, Au Go-Go's, Chris Morgan & The Togas, The Knickerbockers, The Tigi's, Mark and the Escorts, The Other Half, The Jefferson Handkerchief, The Peanut Butter Conspiracy, The Seeds, Fire Escape, The Lyrics, Fenwyck)

Title: Mindrocker, Vol. 1

Label: Line

Format: LP

Cat #: LLP 5115

Year of Release: 1981

Country and Year of Edition Issue: Germany 

Listed Condition: VG+/G+

Sell Date: 4/26/22

Sell Price: $14.99

Discogs Last Sold: 11/22/21 VG+/VG $10.00

Low: $7.37

Median: $12.99

Average: $13.15

High:$21.04

Current low price:$10.53

Current Number on Sale at Discogs:19

Have/Want: 222/79

Where Sold: Almeda, CA

Time it took to sell: 7 years

Where and When Bought: Worcester, Al Bums, New mid 80's around $5.99

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: A-

Sad To See It Go: No

Mindrocker, named after the Fenwyck track, was a 13 Volume German compilation of independent 60's psych singles conceived for Line  Records by Hans Hermann Pohle from 1981-6 for Line Records.  Line imported a ton of cool reissue type things to the US in the pre-CD era.  Who was Hans you may ask. Do you really need to know?  Seems like a cool guy to me, but I know nothing about him except he compiled this and has great name for a credit line.  

This particular volume was the only one I ever saw in a record store.  It looked cool and obscure in the early-mid 80's, so I picked it up. For whatever reason there was only one song that I gravitated to for radio play: the comedic "I'm Allergic To Flowers" by the Jefferson Handkerchief.  I completely forgot that there were "popular" acts on this like The Seeds and The Knickerbockers.  I also forgot that the opening track, "I Ain't No Miracle Worker" by The Brogues was a stone cold actual hit. And "Mr. Pharmacist" was made "popular" by The Fall.  Popular at least to 80's alt-rock types that liked The Fall.   The narrative that I had in my head was Mindrocker is "sorta like Pebbles" is flawed.  It's more like Nuggets.

So what they called "60's Punk" in the 80's were really US rock 'n' roll bands that were influenced by the British Invasion.  More Stones than Beatles, hence "the Punk" but as you hear the various tracks you can hear Beatles as well which means you hear American R&B as well bounced across the pond, filtered, and bounced back across the pond.  These were bands trying to be commercial with money behind them.  The aforementioned Knickerbockers were always cited as a "one hit Beatle knockoff" with "Lies," so it's good to hear the slightly different yet still Beatlesque "One Track Mind."   Much of this stuff came from the GNP-Crescendo label as well as the Challenge label financed in part by cowboy Gene Autry. Crescendo started in 1954 as a Jazz label, but expanded into rock 'n' roll as well as Star Trek soundtracks.  There was no "art for arts sake" aesthetic behind these records.

There is a sound that there is an extremely short lived glory era of American 60's Rock 'n' Roll before the San Francisco hippies and Beatles Sgt. Pepper  fucked it up.  1965 give or take a year.  There are whole careers now based on this, not just with this era, but with music in general.  "Evolution" is seen as a negative, rightly or wrongly.  Somebody likes something and doesn't like the next step.  Psychedelia does rear it's head here in a more playful manner with bands like The Peanut Butter Conspiracy as well as the Jefferson Handkerchief.

Time and time again.